Minnesota Confluence Question

I’ve just started fishing the upper part of pool 2 and have had some luck and I’m looking forward to taking my 8 year-old boy out tonight. Thanks everyone for their help. I have a quick question.

Is the confluence the side channel that comes in downstream of the Watergate Marina or is it just downstream (100 yards?) of the Highway 5 bridge?

For newbies, I rreally like the Bomber 5A for this section of the river. It dives deeper than a #5 Shad Rap and it seems to me that it snags less. Plus, it catches fish.

When we talk about the confluence, we are talking about where the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers come together. That area is about 1/2 mile downstream of Watergate.

Gopher- dump all your Raps. Bomber RULES. he he.

For newbies, I rreally like the Bomber 5A for this section of the river. It dives deeper than a #5 Shad Rap and it seems to me that it snags less. Plus, it catches fish.

---

The 5A bombers are great and do seem to have a great abbility to not snag up. Have you tryed the 6A yet. This is my go to size. (Think I might of miss stated the size in some other posts) At 50′ of line I cane get it down in the 10′ range. What colors have you been trying?
There are times that the shad raps have out produced the Bombers for me. When the eyes move in closer to the shore lines the shallower running shad raps can be pretty good.

We have also caught fish on Frenzys, Walleye divers, Tail dance minnows, and bomber FatA’s this summer. When the eyes where going hot and heavy this summer is seemed that anything that you put in front of them they hit.

Good luck tonight.

How deep can you run your Tail dancers? I have 3, and they cover all 3 sizes. Even the #9 doesn’t seem to troll deeper than 10′.

I even started fooling around on #2, and got an eye on a Spoonbill Rogue….

A guy I was fishing with was running the tail dance. He did pretty good that day on them. Pulled a 24″ with in minutes of dropping it in the water. I have no idea of what that lure does other than it can catch a fish.
On this day we where fishing in his boat and he would just stick to the 1.5MPH trolling. This threw off the way I like to fish the bombers. Sometimes it is just plain tough to ask a guy if they mind if you drive there boat.

My son and I had fun last night. We only had our lines wet for 90 minutes (I promised him we would “lock-through” and we did). We each caught 2 walleyes. His biggest was 18″ and mine was 21″. We each caught a sheepshead and he caught a baby SM.

I haven’t tried the 6A but someone in my boat did last week and got a nice, eating-sized walleye. Last night 3 walleyes came on a #7 firetiger Shad Rap and one was on a 5A thatI would call firetiger. People in my boat have also caught walleyes on light colored shad and chartreuse Shad Raps.

I lost 2 Shad Raps last night but I have lightweight Fireline on that reel. One may have been lost to a pike.

Trolling upstream fast seemed to work, 2.5-3.0 mph on a GPS.

I will give the 6A a shot. Thanks.

I forgot one other thing. Bombers are much cheaper than Raps.

A #2 pro showed me the benefits of going downstream. Just understand that your lure will troll significantly deeper this way, so adjust accordingly. Nothing like having a nice eye hit while going 4mph.

That’s another reason I like St. Croix Pro glass rods, forgiving, yet they got the backbone for burying those hooks. Of course, how can you help but hook those fish when your over 4 mph. Keep your drag loose and hang on to your rod when trolling down stream also. I’m heading down there next Tuesday for the first time in a while, I can’t wait.